The shop's name, "Crony," means "a long-standing close friend or companion" in English, but at the shop it has the meaning of "a permanent tea-drinking buddy."

When you open the door, the kitchen is on the left side of the first floor, and the reception and waiting area is on the right. In the kitchen, young people were working on cooking in a friendly atmosphere. It was a rare sight to enter a restaurant and immediately enter the kitchen, which was refreshing.

A restaurant owned by a sommelier and a chef

Crony is a restaurant that has been steadily rising in popularity. It would never have been created if the two had not met at the three-star French restaurant Quintessence.

The two, owner sommelier Kazutaka Ozawa and owner chef Yoshihiro Haruta, teamed up to open Crony in Nishi-Azabu in 2016. The modern French cuisine, with Haruta creating the dishes and Ozawa serving as the sommelier, gained a reputation and quickly earned a Michelin star.

In 2021, it will move to its current location in a house in Higashi-Azabu. The following year, in 2022, it will be promoted to two Michelin stars. In 2024, it will make its first appearance in the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list at 58th place, and in 2025, it will make a huge leap forward by ranking 30th. What's more, Ozawa will also receive the glorious bonus of winning the Asia's Best Sommelier Award.

So, what happened that night at this incredibly popular restaurant?

Pairing takes your cooking to the next level

The dining area is on the second floor. The furniture and interior are neat and tidy, creating an atmosphere that could be described as Scandinavian. This may be a reflection of the two-star restaurant "Kadeau" in Copenhagen, Denmark, where Chef Haruta trained, and the three-star restaurant "Maaemo" in Oslo, Norway.

The course menu consists of three parts: 18 dishes, including five appetizers, six main dishes including fish and meat, and seven desserts.

The first champagne that Ozawa-san chose for us was "Lost Prestige." It is from Coteaux du Vitoria, a region that is currently attracting the most attention. "When chilled, this champagne brings out the fruitiness," Ozawa-san said. Indeed, it is crisp, yet has a gorgeous aroma of citrus and tropical fruits. It is wonderfully delicious.

It's immediately noticeable that Ozawa's presence in the dining area is unshakeable. Herein lies the merit of the dual ownership system between chef and sommelier. The first floor is Haruta's stronghold where he cooks freely, and the second floor is Ozawa's castle. And with Ozawa's excellent pairing, the synergistic effect takes the cuisine two or three levels higher.

There are countless restaurants in the world that advertise food pairing, but at this restaurant you will discover the true meaning of the word "pairing."

That is not all.

Speaking of which, Ozawa's attention to detail, attention to detail, and his smooth explanations of the food and wine are superb. With him in charge of the floor, the whole place becomes more cohesive and the restaurant transforms into another world. It's truly magic.

Yes, the moment you sit down and catch sight of Ozawa, you feel as if you have entered a kind of zone. In other words, this place is not just about eating delicious food. It is a space where you can enjoy a rare experience, as if you have entered a play that lasts for several hours.

Even though the world is vast, how many people can give off such an aura? That is the topic of this article. If you want to know the skills of Asia's top sommelier, you should visit this store.

Amazing appetizers

The first course was a plate of "Kyoto Uji Nakamura Tokichi's New Tea". It was probably an invitation to "tea-drinking friends". This new tea had a sweet yet elegant taste. It was the prelude to the "Crony World".

The next appetizer, "Aomori Noheji Takamatsu's Small Turnip and White Squid," is made by hollowing out a salted soft turnip into a cone shape and hiding a white squid underneath. It looks like a lotus petal or the hair of a Buddha's head, but when you take a bite, the turnip juice and the white squid meet in your mouth in a sweet way.

Next up was the "Golden Pomme Souffle from Hokkaido Tokachi Kawada Farm". The potatoes puffed up so much that they were almost transparent. They were crunchy when you bit into them. It was the same as the Indian dish poori. The sweetness of the fried oily potatoes mixed with the aroma of the luxuriously sliced truffles. There are many combinations of potatoes and truffles in the world, but this was the first time I'd tried this combination, and I thought it was wonderful.

The appetizers that followed were "Kuruma shrimp from Tanegashima, Kagoshima, and Farm Okano's saffron," and "Cream cheese from Ohm Dairy from Omuta, Fukuoka." Both were impressive, but now it's time for the main course.

Before that, one thing.

As you may have noticed, the menu names are unique in that they are named after the place, producer and ingredients. People who create delicious food are great, but without the ingredients, they cannot take a single step forward. I think the key is to be humble towards producers and ingredients, as is the case with this restaurant. Whether or not you have that awareness will naturally make a big difference in the way you cook. This is also connected to the theme of this restaurant, "sustainability" (sorry if that sounds condescending).

Ahh, snap peas and zucchini flowers!

From here onwards, wine is served with each dish.

The main ingredient of "Snap Peas, Clams and Caviar from Higashi Farm, Hida Takayama, Gifu" is snap peas, and the horn-like herb is dill. Underneath is a generous amount of fragrantly grilled clams and caviar. The sauce is made from stock extracted from snap pea pods.

Mr. Ozawa speaks.

"I paired it with Sancerre Le Grand Rochois Blanc, a white wine from the Loire region. At this time of year on the Loire River, tourists eat asparagus, rape blossoms, herbs, and green peas for lunch. This time, I'm pairing it with snap peas, clams, and caviar. Sancerre is soft but has a complex fruit flavor, which makes it a perfect match for grilled clams and caviar."

This is one of the signature dishes served this season, and the green taste of summery beans is refreshing. When the richness of caviar is added to the savory clam extract, the mouth is overflowing with the deliciousness of the unknown combination of ingredients. The Sancerre wine that comes with it further brings out the umami of seafood such as clams and caviar.

"Chiba Asahi Zucchini Flowers and Sweet Shrimp" is also extremely delicious. Sweet shrimp tartar is stuffed into zucchini flowers and fried. The combination of zucchini flowers and sweet shrimp is fresh. The foamy sauce is made from the shells of sweet shrimp, and it is also served with a paste made from black garlic.

"We paired it with the salty sea wine, Domaine de Paternel Cassis Blanc de Blanc. It has a salty and bitter taste with ripe fruit flavors. It goes well with seafood, especially shellfish, so it goes very well with the sweet shrimp stuffed into the zucchini flowers." (Ozawa)

The season for zucchini flowers won't last long. I love them, so I was delighted to come across them. The rich garlic aroma was perfect with the shrimp tartare. Both the food and the wine were a masterpiece.

Skip cooking a little.

Here, the sommelier's commentary is a treat in itself.

"Kochi Geisei Village White Eggplant Summer Truffle." Under the truffles that cover the top is a fragrant grilled eggplant, and the truffles are soaked in the juice from the white eggplant. The very bottom layer is egg flan (chawanmushi).

The wines that go with the dish are listed below, and the explanations are part of the treat themselves.

"Jean-Marc Boillot's Puligny-Montrachet. Boillot likes to put on a lot of makeup, which goes really well with grilled eggplant and summer truffles. Grilling the eggplant until it's pitch black gives it a charcoal scent. After removing the skin, the creamy part inside mixes with the charcoal, and the truffles are soaked in the juices that come out of the grilled eggplant. It's a straightforward dish. The creaminess of the egg flan, the creaminess of the eggplant, and the truffles create a trinity.

Chardonnay is often said to have a tropical aroma, which is an extension of the aroma of the grass family. If you make it in a cool place, you get rice, then bamboo shoots and corn, and then pineapple. From there, it enters the tropical realm, and eggplant also has a tropical flavor, so it goes very well with this Chardonnay." (Mr. Ozawa)

The chawanmushi gently envelops all the ingredients. Inside the envelopment, there is the aroma and texture of the shredded truffle, and the soft, tender grilled eggplant is pleasant to eat, rich in aroma, and even has a hint of Japanese pepper. It's a very summery dish, but it's also a masterpiece.

Here, the long-awaited dish "Oita Usuda Sake Sourdough Bread with Sake Lees" was served. It is a classic bread made with sake yeast. It is crispy on the outside, but moist inside because it is made with a generous amount of sake. It is spread with whipped sake lees instead of butter. This bread is not a side dish, but a full dish in its own right.

"We paired it with Gin no Shizuku Goutte d'Argent. It's a Chardonnay, but it's a wine fermented with sake yeast. It has "Gin no Shizuku" written in small Japanese characters, and it's a wine made in Chile. It's made by Pascal Martin, who loves sake so much that he's even a member of the Japanese Sake Association.

In fact, about half of the aroma of wine comes from yeast, which is the aroma that is created during fermentation. This time, the sake used in the bread, the yeast that fermented the wine, and the sake lees used to flavor the whipped cream were all mixed with the same yeast using Sake Association No. 7 to create the same aroma," says Ozawa.

I knew this bread was a specialty, but I didn't know it was so elaborate. At other restaurants, bread is just bread. I can't think of many other examples where bread has been given such an important presence. What's more, it was so delicious that I ended up eating too much. It shows how meticulously Mr. Haruta and Mr. Ozawa plan everything they do to create a single dish.

Top quality fish and Riesling

Now, one of the main attractions here is the Isaki Tsurumurasaki from Oseto Suisan on Oshima Island in Wakayama, and I thought that today's course was a journey to reach this peak.

The explanation is quite amazing.

"It's Altenberg's Riesling Amélie Charles Spar. I paired the oily, sharp, and mineral taste of the Riesling with grunt. This wine has a strong concentration of ingredients and is quite viscous. It is usually paired with Alsace or German sausages, pâtés, and hams. It creates a perfect harmony with the sticky texture.

On the other hand, Wakayama's Oseto Suisan does not use any chemical ingredients in the sea, but grows them only with nuts, herbs and vegetables. The grunts raised in this way have very beautiful flesh. The limit for wild grunts is around 600 to 800 grams, but the ones here weigh XNUMX kilograms and are characterized by their thick flesh.

When you chew it, the fat from the nuts creates a subtle umami flavor, so it would be a waste to wash it down with watery wine. I recommend enjoying it with an oily-textured Riesling." (Mr. Ozawa)

The fish itself has a great flavor, and the grilling technique is what makes the most of it. Haruta's fish dishes are packed with a flair that will send shivers down your spine.

The garnish is fried morning glory, whose bitter and astringent taste is very interesting to Japanese people. Or rather, it is rather preferable as it creates a layered flavor. This bitterness would not be well received by the French, for example. After all, they are Esprit Francais people who proclaim, "Because life is full of bitterness, I only put sweet things in my cooking."

Next was the Hokkaido Ezo Venison with New Onions, which was also incredibly cooked and overflowing with juices, and the Nagano Tomi Atelier Fromage's Marl Walsh, a cheese ball that overflowed with juice when bit into, which was also fantastic.

The philosophy of "Tasty comes first"

Dessert was served four times, but I'll just introduce one of them.

Please take a look at the photo. This frost-like thing is "New Tea Hon Mirin by Nakamura Tokichi from Uji, Kyoto," but why is it made with new tea? The second infusion of the gyokuro tea served in the first dish is reused to make new tea ice cream. In other words, the hidden theme is food waste. The third infusion is kneaded into the bottom cookie, making use of every last bit of tea. The delicate white leaves are made from rice flour chips. In other words, this dessert connects the large circle of the course meal, beginning and ending with it.

When we spoke to Chef Haruta, he said that although he had worked at Yannick Alleno's three-star restaurant Ledoyen in Paris, it was Scandinavia and the three-star restaurant Saison in San Francisco, and then Quintessence, where he gained his free-spirited ideas for cuisine.

"I learned a lot from being free to do what I like without being tied down to anything. I try to express delicious things and what I want to convey in a straightforward and simple way, without being confined to a genre. After all, I think the most important thing is that it's delicious."

Chef Haruta's cooking will surely continue to evolve endlessly. Ozawa's skill will further elevate it. This is a duo you can't take your eyes off.

Crony

Address: 1-20-3 Higashiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo
TEL: 03-6712-5085
Business hours: 18:00-23:00 (last orders 20:00)
Closed: Irregular holidays, mainly Sundays

Chef's choice course ¥28,600 (including 10% consumption tax)
Wine pairing: from 16,500 yen (including 10% consumption tax)
Non-alcoholic pairings: from 9,900 yen (including 10% consumption tax)
*10% service charge is charged separately